All The Good Things

Chapter 20 - "Something is wrong."

Ash's bold declaration hung heavy in the air between Zach and her. As she looked at him, his mouth opened in just the slightest, as if her statement had truly caught him off-guard. But the next moment, he closed his mouth and all hints of any real emotion disappeared, along with Ash's patience for the conversation.

She turned and headed in the opposite direction. The original direction she had been heading in before he had ambushed her. She clenched and unclenched her fists as she walked, trying to release some of the white-hot anger that had finally pushed her into talking to him. Her ears strained as they listened to see if he was following her. Thankfully, he thought better of it, and she made it back to her dorm alone.

Once inside, she leaned against the door and let her body slowly sink to the ground. She could feel the energy from her anger slipping out of her fingertips and suddenly all she wanted to do was sleep. It took everything in her to drag herself up onto her bed. As she pulled the covers over her all she could think was that she was grateful she was done trying to have friends.

Unfortunately, Dr. Ellerson was not so pleased Ash was done with friends. At their next session, Ash boldly stated that she would now be completing her attempt to have fun without Zach and asked Dr. Ellerson to please not ask about him. Dr. Ellerson tried to pry more information from Ash but after Ash gave Dr. Ellerson silence for fifteen minutes, Dr. Ellerson finally agreed to move on.

She did manage to finish their session with a comment about how great friends were as Ash stood to leave, but she should not have wasted her breath. It only gave Ash more determination to prove friends were a waste of time and unnecessary.

At the Busy Bean, she kept her conversations with her coworkers light. Any questions about herself she quickly flipped around and without noticing, her coworkers were talking about themselves again. In class, she kept her head down, arrived just as the class started, and was packing up her things as the professor finished up the lecture.

Without the distraction of Zach or their stupid attempt at having fun, she completed more homework than she typically did and even got ahead on some of her class reading.

When she returned to Dr. Ellerson's office the next week, she proudly listed off all that she accomplished because she hadn't wasted time on friends. She was annoyed when Dr. Ellerson simply wrote something in her notebook before she asked, "What did you do for fun this week?"

"I really perfected my latte foam heart. All my coworkers were very impressed."

"And outside of work?"

"I read this fascinating study on language acquisition."

"And outside of homework?" Dr. Ellerson asked again.

This one stumped Ash. She racked her brain for anything she had done outside of class or work but the only thing was eating, and there was nothing exciting about the food offered in the mess hall.

She thought about saying something as dull as noticing the flowers that were coming into bloom as she walked around campus, but even that would be a lie since she kept her head down to avoid Zach whenever she was out and about.

Dr. Ellerson sat patiently waiting for Ash to provide an answer, but Ash had nothing.

"Is it really that important to have fun outside of work or school? Is it so bad to have fun at work and in class?" Ash questioned.